The present invention relates to Software Configuration Management (SCM). More specifically, the present invention relates to environment definition files for an environment definition system.
In general, SCM is set of activities designed to control change by identifying work products that are likely to change, establishing relationships among them, defining mechanisms for managing different versions of these work products, controlling the changes imposed, and auditing and reporting on the changes made. SCM provides a methodology to control and manage a software development project.
One goal of SCM is environment management. Environment management involves the managing of an environment that hosts a development project. Environments can be configured and dedicated for testing a single software project. The environment may include any resources, such as software and hardware, which are required by the project. The lifecycle management of an environment requires knowledge of the process and procedures to be carried out in order to correctly perform the configuration, management, and deletion steps of every piece of software and/or hardware associated with the project (and the environment in which testing is sought). Additionally, knowledge may be required of monitoring systems in order to register and deregister the details of environment services.
Often, this process involves a knowledge transfer from the software developer to an administrator of an environment management system. Typically, information about an environment that is needed is taken from technical documentation. However, important features or concepts may be lost in the knowledge transfer. Additionally, this information is often hard coded into an environment management system. Thus, the process is often tedious and inflexible because the end user or developer can no longer readily change the environment configuration.
Accordingly, what is desired are improved methods and apparatus for solving the problems discussed above. Additionally, what is desired are improved methods and apparatus for reducing some of the drawbacks discussed above.